And now it is all gone—­like an unsubstantial pageant faded; and between us and the old English there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the historian will never adequately bridge.  They cannot come to us, and our imagination can but feebly penetrate to them.  Only among the aisles of the cathedral, only as we gaze upon their silent figures sleeping on their tombs, some faint conceptions float before us of what these men were when they were alive; and perhaps in the sound of church bells, that peculiar creation of mediaeval age, which falls upon the ear like the echo of a vanished world.

The transition out of this old state is what in this book I have undertaken to relate.  As yet there were uneasy workings below the surface; but the crust was unbroken, and the nation remained outwardly unchanged as it had been for centuries.  I have still some few features to add to my description.

Nothing, I think, proves more surely the mutual confidence which held together the government and the people, than the fact that all classes were armed.  Every man, as I have already said, was a soldier; and every man was ready equipped at all times with the arms which corresponded to his rank.  By the great statute of Winchester,[65] which was repeated and expanded on many occasions in the after reigns, it was enacted, “That every man have harness in his house to keep the peace after the antient assise—­that is to say, every man between fifteen years of age and sixty years shall be assessed and sworn to armour according to the quantity of his lands and goods—­that is, to wit, for fifteen pounds lands and forty marks goods, a hauberke, a helmet of iron, a sword, a dagger, and a horse.  For ten pounds of lands and twenty marks goods, a hauberke, a helmet, a sword, and a dagger.  For five pounds lands, a doublet, a helmet of iron, a sword, and a dagger.  For forty shillings lands, a sword, a bow and arrows, and a dagger.  And all others that may shall have bows and arrows.  Review of armour shall be made every year two times, by two constables for every hundred and franchise thereunto appointed; and the constables shall present, to justices assigned for that purpose, such defaults as they do find.”

As the archery was more developed, and the bow became the peculiar weapon of the English, regular practice was ordered, and shooting became at once the drill and the amusement of the people.  Every hamlet had its pair of butts; and on Sundays and holidays[66] all able-bodied men were required to appear in the field, to employ their leisure hours “as valyant Englishmen ought to do,” “utterly leaving the play at the bowls, quoits, dice, kails, and other unthrifty games;” magistrates, mayors, and bailiffs being responsible for their obedience, under penalty, if these officers neglected their duty, of a fine of twenty shillings for each offence.  On the same days, the tilt-yard at the Hall or Castle was thrown open, and the young men of rank amused themselves with similar exercises.  Fighting, or mock fighting—­and the imitation was not unlike the reality—­was at once the highest enjoyment and the noblest accomplishment of all ranks in the state; and over that most terrible of human occupations they had flung the enchanted halo of chivalry, decorating it with all the fairest graces, and consecrating it with the most heroic aspirations.